The present invention relates to the field of computer systems, and more particularly to system thermal management and thermal throttling.
As microprocessors and other components within a computer system become faster and smaller, thermal management becomes more important to prevent device overheating or failure. Currently, if an overheated device, such as a processor, is detected, thermal throttling can be used to reduce the power to the device or to reduce the speed at which the device is running. However, this approach to thermal management considers only the temperature of the device itself, and does not take into consideration thermal coupling between devices in a system.